At Last
by WaltzMatildah
Summary: Oneshot that became a twoshot!: Alex AU. Alex takes a swim instead of Meredith. 'He knew they hadn't noticed yet and while it saddened him in a way he couldn't begin to reconcile he honestly wasn't surprised. He just hoped they would notice eventually.'
1. Chapter 1

**At Last**

_Rating:_ PG

_Disclaimer:_ I own nothing and I definitely make nothing out of it.

_Character:_ Alex AU Oneshot.

_Summary:_ He's not sure how it happened, when it happened, what is going to happen next and once his shoulder blades break the glassy surface of his own frigid reflection he no longer thinks he wants to know either.

_Inspiration:_ Concept: IceWhisper, Format: PixelO

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I 

At first he is confused.

One second he's crouching but with both feet firmly planted on the ground and then the next he's toppling backwards and free falling. He's not sure how it happened, when it happened, what is going to happen next and once his shoulder blades break the glassy surface of his own frigid reflection he no longer thinks he wants to know either. To begin with the shock of falling overwhelms all the other less significant shocks. He hasn't fallen for years, not literally anyway and the feeling of having no control over his own body is confronting and takes his breath away long before the water gets a chance to do it.

The next shock is the temperature. Initially it's white hot and as he fights to move away it clings to him, barbed tentacles, determined to follow, to wrap itself around him and to allow him no respite. Seconds pass before he realises its not actually hot but freezing cold. Colder than anything he has ever experienced before. Colder than an ice cream headache, colder than his unheated bedroom in the middle of winter and he'd always sworn he'd never be that cold again. Colder than his father's eyes.

The last shock comes when he realises he can't breathe.

II 

At first he panics.

Which is a foreign feeling and he's not sure what to do with it. There is shimmery brightness above him and deep darkness below him and as he thrusts his heavy body towards the light he wonders briefly if it's a ruse and if it's just going to take him closer to his own demise. Then he thinks it would be especially mean to play such a trick on a man fighting for his life so he goes with it anyway and although the light gets closer, gets brighter, gets whiter he never does reach the surface on that first attempt.

He stretches one hand above his head desperately and feels his fingers break the surface, giving him renewed hope and vigour. He thrusts again and feels tension as his left foot becomes entangled in the right leg of his scrub pants. He flails to free it and feels the panic escalate to a high pitched screaming in his heart. His face follows his fingers. The shock of the water leaving his cheeks and lips is almost so unexpected and so great that he fails to capitalise and only manages to drag in half his considerable lung capacity of sweet oxygen before being enveloped in the ice once more.

But at least now he knows which way is up.

III 

At first he forgets.

He can't seem to get his arms and legs working together in enough of a rhythmic pattern to keep him afloat but then he remembers it's probably because he never really learned how to in the first place. There were no fun filled trips to the local pool when he was a child, no family holidays to the beach, no family holidays at all that he can remember. By the time he was old enough to make his own fun, to follow his own friends, he found the idea of submerging his face in liquid utterly terrifying.

He was pushed in once. Had spent the afternoon sitting by the side, lower legs dangling into the cool depths, lazing laconically with a perky blonde pressed up against his side. Sipping a beer as though _swimming_ was for lesser beings and the truly cool need only hover in its shadows to create awe. One of his friends had thought it would be funny and after quelling his initial freak out and reigning in his choking breath he managed to force himself to laugh along. In hindsight he realises it was probably a mistake to be scared but in hindsight he also thinks his fear was completely justified, rational even.

His hindsight always was 20:20.

IV 

At first he fights.

After all he always was a fighter, he thinks perhaps it's in his genes but then he hopes not. He refuses to even contemplate that he won't make it out of here. He may have the worst luck of anyone he's ever met but even he always manages to scrape through in the end. It's not even something he thinks he really needs to consider so sure he is of rescue. He stubbornly refuses to give up.

He beats his feet maniacally and notices that he seems to have lost one of his shoes in the frenzy of falling and kicking and twisting and falling again. He thinks it's okay though because it was nearly time to buy new ones anyway. He raises his arms defiantly above his head and feels something pull in his right shoulder that adds piercing pain to the fear and the bone numbing cold and he wonders if he hit something on the way down but doesn't remember if he did.

He thinks a dislocated shoulder is the least of his problems.

V 

At first he laughs.

He thinks it probably wasn't the Chief's intention for them to come down here and add to the casualty list but he finds amusement in that. Hundreds of innocents are killed and injured when the ferryboat crashes, one surgical intern drowns when he falls in attempting to play the hero. Pathetic but kind of poetic at the same time and he thinks he likes it because poetic is not something he would usually associate with his own life.

He knows that Dr. Bailey will think _typical_ when she hears what he has done. Maybe she will be the one to find him and he pictures her jumping in after him. For some reason his mental image has her in a swimsuit and suddenly the radio in his head is singing _itsy bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka dot bikini_. He thinks he's probably starting to lose consciousness but he also wonders why it couldn't have been Izzie jumping in to save him half naked.

She always was his saviour.

VI 

At first he calculates.

The water must be nine or ten degrees. From his medical training he knows he doesn't have long until hypothermia sets in, if it hasn't already. He knows his blood is already being re-directed. Less for fingers and toes and more for vital organs like brain and lungs. He knows he can hold his breath for a long time, until the carbon dioxide levels in his blood become so concentrated that he reaches his breath-hold breakpoint and reflex takes over and makes him breathe in water anyway. He knows that laryngospasm means his airway is probably already closed and any water he does reflexively breathe in will travel to his stomach and not his lungs.

He takes comfort in the fact that the utter coldness of the water means he doesn't need as much oxygen as usual to remain functioning. He knows that at ten degrees Celsius he only needs about a quarter of what he would typically use but that panic and uncoordinated movement can alter that equation quickly in the reaper's favour. He knows he's probably succumbing to hypoxia and but he also knows that at this temperature people, especially young, fit people like him can be revived long after they have stopped breathing and recover completely.

He knows none of that will mean anything if he doesn't get another breath soon.

VII 

At first he wonders.

Did anyone see him go over the edge? Did anyone hear him hit the water or even more recently, hear him come up choking for air? Do they even know he _needs_ rescuing? Would they even bother to rescue him if they did? Would it be easier for them to pretend they never knew him? The questions pound him from all directions and slowly shatter his resolute resolve until his whispered mantra morphs gradually from _don't give up_ to _you're so gonna die_. Freakin' great.

Is his brain dead already? Have his lungs filled with grimy water that will give him pneumonia or cause secondary drowning hours, days, after his rescue? He thinks it will be tragically cruel to fight his way out of the rampaging water only to suffocate on dry land anyway. His hands are floating, as though detached, in front of his face and he stares at them and commands them to move but they refuse and he realises he can no longer feel his own arms. The light above him seems to be drifting further up, or is it only that he is drifting further down? Black circles are marring his vision but he can't move his hands to swat them away and he vaguely thinks that even if he could they wouldn't disperse.

If they rescue him now will he even wake up anyway?

VIII 

At first he remembers.

The feel of utter devastation when he failed his boards was comparable only to the feel of being laughed at in fifth grade for having neither his mother nor his father turn up for 'parent's day'. He'd tried to skip school that day but his teacher had found him hiding in the bushes outside the school gates and he'd effortlessly lied about what he was doing there and dutifully followed her into the classroom. He remembers his mother's blond hair and the way she used to have it cut so that the ends would curl out and flick up slightly and she always smelled of lavender and even today that scent reminds him of her. Even though he now knows it was only because vodka had no odour that he couldn't smell that.

He thinks back to his friends and contemplates whether they will miss him He's fairly sure that Izzie might, maybe and he wishes desperately now that he'd kissed her on their first date. He thinks that Christina probably won't even stop to flinch and that George will be glad to have his syph-spreading ass out of the way. He hopes that Meredith will notice because he secretly thinks that they are a lot alike and he would definitely notice if she were suddenly gone.

But he knows feelings like that are not always reciprocated.

IX 

At first he regrets.

He hasn't spoken to a single person that he is related to by blood for over five years. They don't even know that he beat the lot of them and is now a surgeon and he hopes they get a nice surprise when the police arrive to tell them what has happened. He loved his girlfriend during college and he loves Izzie now but he has never said those words to either of them. He has never said those words to anyone and meant them. If he gets out of this he knows he still won't say them. His best friend in grade school told him cats were dumb girl pets and when his mother bought him home a small grey kitten that meowed pitifully and clung to his shirt he told his mother he didn't want it even though he did desperately and she gave it away to the girl next door.

He enjoys working with babies and children. He likes the way they trust him implicitly, unquestioningly. They don't judge and they tell you exactly what they think. His soul burns every time he has to cut into another tiny body and he questions the fairness of punishing someone who has yet to live enough to make mistakes.

Despite all this and assuming he gets out of here he is going to be a plastic surgeon.

**X**

At last he lets go.

There is a roaring between his ears that is making it difficult to focus on anything else and it feels like a sledge-hammer has been slammed into the centre of his chest. He can tell his mouth is open because he can taste the contaminated water on his tongue and the thought makes him want to gag but he doesn't because he can't. He wonders when he did that, opened his mouth, because he knows it was a bad idea. There's no turning back now.

The cold has seeped through his skin and muscle and has deeply penetrated his bones and is slowly shutting down his internal organs. Movement is no longer simply painful and exhausting it is impossible. He refuses to be scared and he opens his eyes to look death rebelliously in the face. Addison is there, her reflection is shimmering and soft at the edges, like a ghost and he wonders for a moment if it's not her that is close to the end and he feels sad. She smiles up at him, green eyes blink slowly through dark shadowy lashes and he realises with some relief that it's definitely him on the way out. _No-body noticed_ he says and she smiles again, a slow, sad, apologetic smile that he's not seen before and when her lips part as she prepares to speak he raises a finger to them to silence her.

_It's okay, _he whispers, absolving her,_ no-body ever does_.

END 


	2. Forever Never

**Forever Never**

Word Count: 1800

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I own nothing and I definitely make nothing out of it.

Character: Alex AU Oneshot (that became a Twoshot by popular demand).

Summary: A continuation of At Last (which can be found here and at my own page) where Alex takes a swim instead of Meredith. 'He knew they hadn't noticed yet and while it saddened him in a way he couldn't begin to reconcile he honestly wasn't surprised. He just hoped they would notice eventually'.

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I

Alex was first.

As the cold slowly seeped from his bones and as the crushing in his chest lifted and as the black spots in this vision became larger exponentially and merged together to deny him light of any kind, he knew. The fight had stopped minutes ago, or was it only seconds? Time had lost all sense of rhythm and balance. In the end he'd welcomed it. Anything to end the cold and the wet and the _loneliness _of this watery prison. He knew they hadn't noticed yet and while it saddened him in a way he couldn't begin to reconcile he honestly wasn't surprised. He just hoped they would notice eventually.

The point where life became death, where flickering chance became a void of hopelessness, where existence became extinction was fleeting. It was there and then it wasn't, the slight ripples on the glassy surface of the water far above his head slowly ebbed and evened out.

A final clue, a wave goodbye.

II

Meredith was second.

She was still at the site when a rumour started to ripple through the exhausted throng. Initially it was just a body in the water, not so big a deal. There had been plenty of those all day. Then it was a rescue worker in the water, slightly more alarming but even that was quickly amended to a rescue worker's jacket in the water, no body. There was ominous silence for a couple of hours after that and she began to forget the suggestion altogether. Then it hit.

She was still there when the divers arrived. She was still there when the shoe was discovered. She was still there when, finally, strangers with strong arms and even stronger hearts than hers could ever be, emerged from the black depths. She'd been watching over the side with morbid fascination, knees drawn to her chest and teeth chattering from a bone chilling cold she couldn't even feel. She blinked but refused to cry.

Alex didn't do tears, she would honour that.

III

Miranda was third.

She had just jumped into the back of an ambulance, her gloved hand practically inside the gaping chest would of her critically injured patient. At first she'd looked at the search and rescue worker as though he were mad when he'd suggested that she might want to send someone else with the patient, that she might want to stay. Then he told her why.

Izzie had dissolved completely and Meredith was a solid trembling lump in front of her as they brought him up. His heavy body a shade of grey so grotesque that she couldn't tear her eyes away but, equally, she couldn't step closer either. They placed him on a gurney and his right arm fell to the side momentarily, the angle unnatural, acute. Her hand was over her mouth and her heaving lungs were almost hyperventilating as her mind spun crazy webs from unrelated words. _Desperate, forgotten, anything but typical_.

Everything about him had been against the odds.

IV

Richard was fourth.

Miranda called him in a completely out of character panic, the degree of which initially shocked him so greatly that he failed to absorb her disjointed words and incoherent rambling. He even hung up on her once accidentally and had to hold his breath impatiently as his attempt to reconnect with her was thwarted by her ringing him back at the same time. He was collapsed to his knees in the middle of the ER when the call finally dropped through and he only just found the courage to ask her to repeat herself.

He met the ambulance at the emergency bay and had it ushered on to an entrance as close to the morgue as mechanically possible. If he couldn't protect his staff in life then he sure as hell would do it in death. There was a detached eeriness to the hospital, as though even those who should have had no idea what had happened still knew instinctively and they walked with their heads ducked and spoke with their voices hushed.

Respect for the unknown, gone.

V

Derek was fifth.

He'd walked into the ER as the Chief dropped to the floor and was initially relieved when he didn't go any further than his knees. There was a phone pressed into his right hand but it was hanging limply just below his hip. He appeared unfocused and Derek called his name with an unexplainable urgency and was met with a confused frown and the emptiest eyes he had ever seen.

Meredith was in an ambulance directly behind it. It pulled up alongside but didn't follow as the first pulled out again and crept further along the side of the building. Derek could see her struggle to stand before stumbling slightly and as he rushed forward to assist he could see she was being weighted down by another body meshed so tightly and so completely to her own that it was difficult to see where one ended and the other began. They were trembling and soundless and one.

So he held them both until he was holding them up.

VI

Izzie was sixth.

She'd been hit with the rumours as soon as she'd exited the confines of the vehicle hold on the ferry, still high from her power tool surgery. A rumbling swirl of uncertainty developed deep in her gut that she couldn't quite explain away and she made a path to where she could see Meredith and Dr. Bailey, standing unnaturally close but seemingly oblivious of one another. She discovered she'd broken out into a slow, uneven jog and when her sudden appearance went by unacknowledged she grabbed at the dripping jacket in Dr. Bailey's hands and searched it frantically for a name-tag. _George or Alex? George or..._oh.

She shut her eyes when they lifted him out. She was standing but the world was swaying and the tears were making visibility minimal anyway. Instead of watching she remembered the smell of his skin in the mornings. She remembered, one by deliberate one, each and every fragile feeling he had ever evoked in her, hurt, fear, disgust, lust, desire, comfort, safety, love. She remembered the way she felt in his arms like it was yesterday.

Or a tomorrow that would never come.

VII

George was seventh.

The clinic had been inundated with frantic relatives and friends of people believed to have been on the ferry. Ironically, he thought bitterly, he had spent the majority of his day searching handwritten records and cold morgues and Goddam _body bags _for missing people. He imagined briefly what it would have been like to find out like that, to find _him _like that, another nameless faceless victim in a sea of nameless faceless victims. Then he vomited at his feet and was ushered by nameless faceless hands into the nearest bathroom.

He vaguely remembered Izzie's embrace being carefully extricated from Meredith's side, an unzipping of bodies that was excruciating to watch. Limp arms where then draped over him as she became his burden and his alone to carry. He still felt nauseous, still found breathing to be a painful exercise he had to constantly remind himself to carry out but he would put one foot in front of the other and he would hold on, to Izzie, to all of them, for dear life.

Because five had just become four.

VIII

Christina was eighth.

She'd been in surgery. A particularly gory but none the less successful surgery that she had enjoyed immensely and it had almost _almost _made up for not being allowed to attend the crash site earlier in the day. She scrubbed out with a satisfied smirk on her face, exchanging obligatory small talk with the other doctors mirroring her actions at the sink. Finished, she pushed the door to the scrub room open and stepped out into the hall only to find Meredith and George and Izzie lined up on the floor against the wall opposite her. Izzie was curled into George's side and her face was obscured from view but as she took an uncertain step towards them Meredith looked up and their eyes locked.

There were photos of wedding dresses spread over the coffee table, photos of flower girls and bridesmaids and smiling best men. Her own fiance was standing behind her in the distance and she could tell he was speaking. A muffled baritone reverberated somewhere in the back of her awareness but she couldn't tear her eyes away from the toothy grin of a dark haired groom printed crisply on the flimsy magazine paper between her frozen fingers.

The finality of forever terrified her suddenly.

IX

Addison was ninth.

The ferry crash had presented her with no end of expectant mothers in desperate need of her skilled services and she was nearing the end of her tether when Derek appeared in front of her. She'd refused to believe him at first, couldn't solidify his words, couldn't hear him over the rush of her own blood in her ears. Afterwards, alone, bereft, she tormented herself. _You didn't notice._

Her whole career had been about life, its development, its beginning, its starting point. She stood in the hallway outside the neonatal unit and found herself unable to enter. A magnetic force repelled her from the swinging doorway and she felt tainted in some way, impure, jinxed to the point that no amount of juju could ever hope to rectify. Inside a tiny baby cried, all breathy screams and no tears.

It was only outside that the tears fell.

X

His mother was tenth.

She was in an alcohol-induced doze on her couch when the police officer knocked on her door. It took her a moment to fuse the two swaying images into one she could focus on and even longer than that for his words to penetrate the numb fog she liked to spend her days in. She laughed first when he asked if she had a son who was a surgeon at some hospital in another state that she could no longer remember. A sharp, bitter sound that was foreign even to her. Afterwards she hoped that Alex would find his father in an afterlife she believed wholeheartedly must exist because if there was nothing after this then what was the point? Then she wondered whether Alex would look for someone he didn't even know was there.

She phoned her boss and told him she wouldn't be in. Told him that the husband she'd never loved enough had died alone in a crack house and now the son she'd never wanted enough had died alone a tragic hero and she'd never wanted more than now to hold them both. She chain-smoked three packets of cigarettes and didn't so much as cough.

She laughed hysterically at the absurdity of that.

END


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